


All My Friends Are Here

by abrighteryellow



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: A couple of light f-bombs, Alternate Universe, And has bad taste in movies, Bars and Pubs, Be gentle I'm new, Fluff, Harry is a ham, Liam is good at math, Louis is cranky, M/M, Niall is a Good Friend, One Shot, Otherwise squeaky clean, Social drinking, Unrepentant Harry hair-worship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-03
Updated: 2018-04-03
Packaged: 2019-04-17 15:40:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14192286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abrighteryellow/pseuds/abrighteryellow
Summary: He is about to decline, though. If he has to sit through forced merriment, the least he can do is avoid participation at all costs. He is about to, but then the guy with the microphone is looking out into the crowd. He’s saying things, too — about rules and prizes and team names. At least, Louis assumes so. He can’t really hear him over the ringing in his ears.“Alright, mate. I’ll play.”A pub quiz has invaded Louis’s favorite dive. Fortunately, it comes with a charming host.





	All My Friends Are Here

**Author's Note:**

> Wrote this over a weekend with much advice and cheering on from the wonderful disgruntledkittenface and crinkle-eyed-boo. Title is from the Hanson song "I Don't Want To Go Home." Listen to it, it's great.

“Pub quiz starts in 10 minutes!”

 

Louis — a 24-year-old graphic designer who’s had a hell of a day, thank you — shakes off his jacket and claims his regular bar stool.

 

“Oh, Nialler?” he calls, sweetly. The brunette bartender turns around to face him.

 

“Yes, pet?” Niall puts a paper coaster in front of Louis and starts pulling his pint, unbidden.

 

“Could you kindly tell me what the fuck is going on?”

 

“Well, Louis,” Niall begins, speaking at half his normal clip. “Pubs are social establishments. These people all around you, they come here to drink alcohol and rub up against each other.”

 

Louis touches his fingertips to his throat in feigned surprise. “All of them?”

 

“No, not all of them.” Niall sets the beer on top of the coaster. “No. Some of them come here to pester their innocent, hardworking bartender with ludicrous questions.”

 

“It’s hardly a ludicrous question, Niall. What the fuck is going on here, tonight, in  _ my  _ bar?”

 

“Jeff’s bar,” Niall mutters.

 

“Why are there” — Louis barrels on, gesturing towards the crowded back half of the establishment —  _ “people  _ here? On a Tuesday night? How am I supposed to complain to you about my clients if you’re actually serving drinks?”

 

“Did you not hear the announcement when you came in? Jeff’s trying out a pub quiz. If it works — and prepare yourself for this, Tommo — it’ll be every Tuesday.”

 

Louis dramatically drops his elbows onto the table and his face into his hands, looking not unlike one of his youngest siblings mid-dinner table tantrum.

 

“Niall, tell  _ Jeff,” _ he says into his palms, “that if I wanted to go to a  _ fun  _ bar where people  _ do  _ things, I sure as hell wouldn’t come here.”

 

Smile spread wide on his face, Niall leans over and ruffles Louis’s hair. “That’s the spirit.”

 

As his traitorous confessor heads down the bar to help one of these interlopers, Louis cranes his neck to get a better look at the set-up. Jeff is setting up the PA in the back, and it doesn’t appear to be going well. He hands the microphone to a tall guy in a loud shirt whose back is facing the bar. Jeff flips a switch, and feedback screams out of the speakers. Everyone in the pub jumps.

 

“Uhh, sorry,” the guy drawls into the mic. The sound goes dead again.

 

And then there’s another guy, all puppy dog brown eyes and hopeful expression, standing right in front of Louis’s face. “Give it a go?”

 

He’s holding a sheet of paper and a golf pencil out to Louis as if it were a present.

 

Louis narrows his eyes in confusion.

 

The brown-eyed guy’s face falls, but he recovers quickly.

 

“Pub quiz! Four rounds, all topics. I hear there are free drinks for the winners. You could try to join a team, if you like — people are usually pretty friendly. Or you could play alone, that’s fine too.”

 

Louis tamps down the urge to take the paper from the boy, slowly rip it in two, and let it fall to the floor.

 

He is about to decline, though. If he has to sit through forced merriment, the least he can do is avoid participation at all costs. He’s just about to, but then the guy with the microphone is looking out into the crowd. He’s saying things, too — about rules and prizes and team names. At least, Louis assumes so. He can’t really hear him over the ringing in his ears.

 

“Alright, mate. I’ll play.”

 

*****

 

It’s only Harry’s second gig hosting, and his first time breaking in a new venue. He’d been nervous to do it — still is, if he’s honest. At least James paired him with Liam, the most painfully trustworthy scorekeeper they’ve got. He’ll run the ship. All Harry has to do is read the questions. Piece of cake.

 

“Alriiiight,” Harry says into the mic, pulling the questions from his back pocket. “Everyone clear on the rules?”

 

Silence.

 

_ Shit. _

 

“Oh, I’m gonna need more than that from you guys,” he teases. “Whatever happens and whoever wins, I want you to have the best Tuesday night you’ve ever had, here in this room. It’s just a quiz.”

 

A few laughs.

 

_ Please god let them loosen up _ .

 

*****

 

As the first round wraps up, Louis is putting the finishing touches on his answer sheet. Or he is, until a big Irish head gets between him and the bar lamp.

 

“Excuse me, Niall, could you stop  _ blocking the light?” _ Louis yanks the sheet closer to himself, angling the edge so that Niall can’t see it. 

 

Niall steps back, both hands up. “Sorry, Mr. Trebek, I wouldn’t want to sully the integrity of the quiz. Only I’m not actually  _ playing,  _ you know. ‘M not cheating off of you.”

 

“But you  _ could  _ be feeding answers to that group of young ladies down there.” Louis nods in the direction of the other end of the bar. “Couldn't you? I know how you operate, you cad.”

 

Niall puts his hands on his heart. “You wound me, Lewis, you really do.”

 

“Get those numbers on your own merit, heartbreaker.”

 

Niall chuckles as he walks away.

 

Then the scorer — Liam, apparently — is back again. Louis starts.

 

“I’m sorry, are you related to any groundhogs by any chance?”

 

Liam wrinkles his nose. “What?”

 

“Never mind.” Louis hands him his sheet.

 

Liam looks down at it, then places it back on the bar.

 

“You forgot to name your team.”

 

“Ah, yes. Let me consult with myself.”

 

Liam barks a laugh. Louis scrawls two letters on the top of his sheet and hands it back to him.

 

“There you are, my good man. And is there any chance I could have another one of these pencils?” He holds up a blunted nub. “A few maybe?”

 

*****

 

Harry takes a sip of his water and clears his throat a couple of times. Peering over Liam’s shoulder, he spots an extra scoring pen and picks it up. Grasping his long curls with both hands, he twists them into an efficient, messy bun, and secures it with the biro. He never knows what to do when Liam’s doing his part of the job, and he has a feeling that Liam won’t accept his help. So he watches.

 

It’s not much to look at really. Just checks and strikes. Until Liam flips the next-to-last round one score sheet onto his “done” pile, face-down. The back of the sheet is not blank.

 

Harry picks it up, and tilts it toward the light.

 

It’s a sketch of him. A quick one, certainly, but wildly professional. The artist drew Harry from the top of his head to his knees — not from memory, but from this very night. He’s clearly speaking in the drawing, holding the mic to his lips and cocking his hip out to the side. Whoever drew this took extra time on the hair, varying the pressure on the pencil to represent texture. Harry sets the sheet back on the table and touches the drawing lightly with his index finger. He can feel where the pencil depressed the paper.

 

Hosts do get extraneous comments — mostly crude ones — but none of his coworkers have ever mentioned artwork.

 

“Liam, could you let me know before you throw these away at the end of the night?”

 

“Hm? Oh sure, Harry,” he affirms, distractedly.

 

Harry is about to conclude his study of the drawing before he notices. Hiding in the star pattern of sketch-Harry’s shirt is a perfectly rendered rose.

 

His chest feels tight all of a sudden, so Harry undoes another button.

 

*****

 

The next round, Louis doesn’t even bother to half-heartedly fill in the answers. He flips the sheet immediately and gets to work, the tip of his tongue poking out in concentration. 

 

He does have to pause throughout to study his subject — without argument, the most beautiful boy Louis has ever seen.

 

“Great job on round 1, ladies and gentlemen,” Harry says into the mic in his smokey scotch voice. “And, uh, I’m happy to see from your answer sheets that you’re having fun with this. If you don’t know an answer, the least you can do is make Liam laugh with a fake one.”

 

Liam waves from his table, grinning.

 

“And, um. We’re loving the artwork too,” Harry says seriously. “So thank you for that.”

 

Louis smirks. He can’t help it.

 

But his timing is terrible. His attention is focused on Harry for just long enough for Niall to snatch the answer sheet from him.

 

“Wey hey, what have we got here?” Niall holds the paper up next to his face. It’s the beginnings of Louis’ next sketch: Harry in profile, tendrils of hair that escaped from his bun curling down his neck. “Of course you’re our artist. Who else would it be?”

 

Louis gingerly plucks it out of Niall’s hands and returns to work. “Just getting some practice in, Niall. Never stop learning and all that.”

 

“Of course, right.” Niall nods. “That’s why, when I asked you to draw  _ me _ a picture, you handed me a napkin with a stick figure on it and said, ‘I don’t work for free.’” 

 

Louis ignores him, concentrating on the noble slope of Harry’s nose.

 

Niall sighs loudly. “Are you gonna ask him out then? Seems like a good sort. Tips well.”

 

“Niall, let me give some advice to you and your fellow straights.” Louis pinches the bridge of his nose. “There’s such a thing as romance, like. There are other ways to show interest in someone than just grunting in their general direction and plying them with drink.”

 

“Okay, Picasso, you just let me know how this sidewalk caricaturist method of pulling works out.”

 

“Oh. I will.” Louis smiles smugly, and pulls a pencil case from his messenger bag.

 

*****

 

The next sketch is even more intricate than the first. It’s Harry’s face from the side, deep in concentration — probably from the moment when one of his answers was challenged. His brow is furrowed and he’s biting his bottom lip.

 

_ Is that…? _

 

It is. The artist wasn’t satisfied with just pencil this time. He — or she — dotted a jeweled green into Harry’s eyes. They leap off the page. Harry’s heart pounds.

 

“Wow.” Liam is right next to Harry’s ear. How does he do that? “Someone certainly likes you.”

 

Harry can feel the blush spread across the exposed part of his chest. He lifts a hand to his collar to try hide it.

 

“Or I’m boring them completely. This team didn’t even fill out any answers.”

 

Liam claps him on the shoulder and gives it a squeeze. “Seems like they were busy with other things, mate.”

 

Harry leans in, conspiratorially. “Who is it, Liam? Did you notice?” Liam takes the sheet from Harry and looks at the front. Two letters where the team name should be. He smiles.

 

“Bloke in the front. By himself, at the bar. You probably can’t see him too well from here, with the lights in your face.”

 

Something surges through Harry. Excitement chased by apprehension. 

 

“Is he creepy? Is he, like, a drifter? Am I going to be followed when I leave tonight?”

 

“If he’s a drifter, he’s the best-dressed one I’ve ever seen,” Liam laughs. Harry exhales in an amused huff. “He’s got that hipster look about him that you like. Nice face. Seems like he’s friends with the bartender.”

 

Harry peers towards the door, but Liam’s right. With the way the lights are positioned he can’t make out much. Just two forms curved in towards each other at the end of the bar.

 

*****

 

Round three is underway. Louis has decided to draw Harry’s hands.

 

He’s got an eye for those, seeing as he works with his own so much. He can’t stop watching Harry’s as they move — pinching his bottom lip between his fingers as he listens to someone make a case for an answer; his palm nearly swallowing the microphone in its casual grip; a hand lightly brushing Liam’s hip as Harry moves behind him, a friendly warning not to step back. Ideally, he’d have a model right in front of him, for close inspection. But Louis has a good imagination, and at this moment, it’s running wild. 

 

Louis is... Fuck it, Louis is enchanted. 

 

He’s not one for crushes, but Harry’s presence is so magnetic that Louis doesn’t even begrudge Niall his teasing. He labors happily along, the sound of Harry’s voice listing random, useless factoids somehow both the most soothing and erotic thing he’s ever heard.

 

“Are you at least going to  _ talk  _ to him when this is all over?”

 

“I’ll cross that bridge when I come it, Niall. Now please, could you stop impeding the work?”

 

“The work. Of course, the work. Carry on, then, Mr. Woodcock. Sew that Phantom Thread.”

 

“How’s everyone doing in the front?” Harry asks to mild cheers, pausing his questions to vamp. He’s really quite good at this. “How’s everyone doing on the sides? And how’s everyone doing in the back?”

 

Niall whoops.

 

“It’s taken me all night to realize that this microphone is wireless,” Harry laughs. The audience laughs with him. “So I’m going to come and visit you lot back there in a minute.”

 

Louis’s heart drops into his shoes. He had two more rounds left in his plan. This wasn’t supposed to happen yet.

 

He keeps one eye on Harry as he weaves through tables, asking questions and making small talk with his patrons in between. He’s just shading one of Harry’s slender index fingers when Harry reaches the bar. Louis turns the sheet over quickly, leaning his elbow onto the bar and turning towards the host. Harry gives Niall a nod as he draws closer, then his eyes fall on Louis. 

 

Their gazes lock, and Louis can’t tear his away, as much as he wants to study the entire figure from close range. Harry repeats the question he just asked from memory, his eyes still boring into Louis’s.

 

“The quote ‘I am half agony, half hope’ comes from which Jane Austen novel?”

 

Louis swallows thickly. He knows the answer, but he can’t bring himself to write it.

 

Harry draws even closer, tearing his eyes away from Louis to look at his answer sheet. The only field filled out is the team name. Harry seems satisfied by it. Louis swears he can feel the warmth coming off the boy’s body; the subtle cologne he’s wearing invades his senses.

 

Harry looks back at Louis.

 

“Hello,” he mouths silently. 

 

*****

 

“Did you get everyone’s?” Harry asks.

 

“Yeah, this should be everybody’s.”

 

“Let me help you so we can get out of here faster.” Harry takes the pile of round four answer sheets from Liam and separates them by halves. He gets to grading, trying not to be too blatant about looking for the artist’s contribution. 

 

“I’ve got it right here,” Liam says, absentmindedly, holding a sheet out to Harry.

 

Harry frowns. “Am I that obvious?”

 

“Hey, you’ve got a secret admirer. It’s okay to be excited about it.”

 

And he is. Excited about it. Even if it’s just a game he and this guy are playing for the night. But Harry’s hopes fall when he sees the back of the sheet. Round three had been a sketch of his hands, a pink heart hidden in the meat of his palm. Round four — coincidentally, the round after the boy first saw Harry up close — has nothing. 

 

“Well, Liam, I think he’s over me. He just went back to answering the questions.”

 

Now it’s Liam’s turn to frown. “Let me see that.”

 

He takes the paper back and begins grading.

 

“This isn’t right. Every answer is wrong, even the dead easy ones. And they’re strange too, like complete nonsense. Number one: ‘Which famous tennis player recently gave birth to a daughter named  Alexis Olympia?’ He wrote ‘yellow.’”

 

Harry takes the sheet back and stares at it unhappily. “Maybe my complete awkwardness short-circuited his brain? Or maybe he’s making of me.”

 

_ “Or,” _ Liam says eagerly. “Maybe the answers don’t mean what we think they mean.”

 

“What the fuck are you on about?”

 

“Maybe they’re a code. Like in  _ National Treasure.” _

 

“Liam,” Harry sighs, “This is not the time for your frankly bizarre obsession with Nicholas Cage. James said no to a  _ Con-Air  _ trivia by the way.”

 

“I’m being serious here, Harry! Ciphers are used for all kinds of things. And if this guy wants you to get the message he’s sending, he’s probably used the easiest one.”

 

Liam plucks the sheet from Harry’s hand and sets it back on the table. He circles the first letter of every answer and pushes it towards Harry.

 

“There. Now let’s see what you’ve got.”

 

Harry picks up a pen and reproduces each circled letter at the bottom of the page, in order, starting with the “y.”

 

_ YOUR SMILE. _

 

Next to number 10, the artist drew a smiley face.

 

*****

 

“We just want to thank all of you for coming out tonight,” Harry begins. And Louis wants to die.

 

It’s been at least 20 minutes since he handed in his answers. Harry’s stayed firmly on his side of the pub, aside from having a brief whispered conversation with Niall, probably about prizes.

 

_ Maybe they didn’t get it. _

 

_ They run a quiz,  _ of course  _ they got it. _

 

He unhooks his jacket from underneath the bar and starts to shrug it on. Harry will be here every week, bringing Louis’s humiliation with him.

 

“Tommo, where ya going? Don’t you want to know who wins?”

 

“Clearly it’s not me, Niall. And since this has been such a  _ rousing  _ success, I’ve lost my Tuesday night pub forever.” 

 

“Wah, wah,” Niall faux-whines. “Just sit down and clap for the winners, alright?”

 

“Okay.” Harry taps the mic with his palm to regain everyone’s attention. “I’m going to read through the scores in order. My top two teams, stick around to claim your prize. And the rest of you, don’t run off so quickly either. I’ve got a few other special honors.” He raises an eyebrow dramatically.

 

Louis expects to hear his team called first, seeing as he really only played round one. But Harry must have skipped it out of embarrassment, because he’s suddenly reading out scores in the 30s, and table by table is exploding with cheers. 

 

Louis drains the last of his beer and deposits the glass on the bar with an empty thud.

 

“And our  _ first place winners,” _ Harry announces, Liam pounding a drum roll on the table next to him, “are the Spanish In-quiz-ition! Cheers to you guys. Amazing job. See Niall for your free round!”

 

Louis takes a bill out of his wallet and slaps it down. “Right, okay, Nialler. I’m out of here.”

 

“If I could just have your attention for one more moment, ladies and gentlemen. Because pub quiz isn’t just about winning,” Harry says gravely. “It’s also about team names! Niall has some bar swag for our best team name winner, Four Sheets To The Wind!”

 

Louis claps half-heartedly as the girls at the end of the bar shriek in celebration. He shoulders his messenger bag.

 

“And finally,” Harry continues. “I’ve got an honorary award for one team that made this night really special.”

 

Louis perches on the stool, breath caught in his throat.

 

“The most artistic award goes to team H.I.”

 

Liam taps him on the shoulder and whispers in Harry’s ear. Harry nods at the correction. 

 

“Oops, ‘Hi.’” Harry smiles, looking straight back at Louis.

 

Louis shoots a look at Niall, who giggles. Probably because Louis is rarely — if ever — speechless. 

 

“Don’t look at me." Niall cocks his head towards Harry. "He’s got your prize.”

 

Louis has to fight against the crowd that’s moving towards the door, saying their goodbyes to Niall and teetering drunkenly. He meets an exiting Liam in the crush.

 

Liam offers his hand, and Louis shakes it. “You’re really talented, man. Hope to see you back here again.” Louis nods silently, overwhelmed.

 

By the time he reaches Harry, almost everyone else is gone. Niall’s set a two-top in the corner with Louis’s usual, a glass of wine, and a candle, then busied himself over at the till.

 

“You’re really terrible at pub quiz, do you know that?” Harry asks. “Your teachers ever yell at you for doodling during class?”

 

Louis beams. “All the time.”

 

“But I figured those sketches at least earned you a drink,” Harry continues, thoughtfully. “And if you want, I could maybe join you?”

 

“Yeah,” Louis breathes. “Yeah, that’d be alright.”

 

Harry shines even brighter.

 

“I’m Louis.”


End file.
